community specifically, the african-american community? >> well, i'll start, and i have really two points to make, the first one is that there is an old adage, that if you ask the wrong question you are guaranteed to get the wrong answer and, this is one of those areas where i think we may be -- have been busy ask the wrong question. in the sense that, we have gotten ourselves caught into a conversation about whether we -- black people should be speaking black english or standard english and whether standard english should supersede or override black english, and whether black english outlived s usefulness, all of these consideratio and concern is. and, the reason why i say it is this wrong question, is that in the 21st century world, language is in fact your keyo being able to negotiate this world.

and, rather than getting caught in the question of whether we should have one or the other, it really suld be a suation of discussing the merits of both, and the other languages we are going to be learning. i just came back fm algiers. there is a pan-african culture festival sponsored by the algerian government and they brought over 5,000 people from artists, intellectuals, scholars, writers, et cetera from all over the african continent and some parts of the diaspora. and the first thing that struck me as i got off of the plane, was that we were met by a group of algerian students, one young lady was 18 years old. and she was already fluent in french and the arab language. but, she was also fluent in

english. and we had a conversation with her and we asked, well, you know, how did you learn your english? and she said, from watching television. and she literally had sat watching television, growing up over a period of 18 years and learned not just -- learned english, over and aboveer knowledge of the arabic which she already spoke and learned with her family and the french she learned in school. so, this is a young lady, 18 years old who is speaking three languages and able to negotiated and carry on conversations with people through those three linguistic structures around the world. we here in the u.s. get caught in the quite frankly foolishness about english only. if we become english-only, we will become a people that are isolated from the peoples of the world. this is not the time for black people to be, you know, getting bent out of shape about whether

they are going to speak black englis or standard english. they need to be speaking both, a, but they also need to be learning, we all need to be learning the languages of the otherarts of the world, and, this is not inconsistent with african tradition. virtually anyplace you go on the continent of africa, people who haven't been to school anywhere are speaking at least two, somemes three languages. so, to go back to my original point, you asked the wrong question, you are guaranteed to get this wrong answer and yes, we should be speaking and continuing to learn and perpuate, have knowledge of, beacon verse sant in our african-american vernacular language but we also need to, yes, we do need to learn standard english. and, we need to be learning other languages so thatere

capable of, among other things, communicating with the people here in this country. in this city of new york. they listed the number of languages and i remember, that is not ast nominal could be- an astronomical number of languages and i'm fluent in english, standard english -- i guess i am -- i'm fluent in colored english, and'm fluent in spani and i learned spanish as part of my peace corps training, and i spent years in latin america. you can't believe if you haven't had that experience, what life expanding experience it is for you to learn another language and to be able to put yourself intellectually, spirituall emotionally and linguistically into another language and the addition of langues is something that strengthens you, enhances you, giv you more capability to negotiate your world, and to be a healthy human

being, in the 21st century. i think we need to be having the conversation about how we make our children -- assist our children in becoming multi-lingual, rher than having a debate about whether we should be mono lingual in either standard english or black english. [applause]. >> well, i would like to piggy back on dr. dobson's point. as i indicated, in my introduction, i am the president of the american educational research association, which is the largest association of educational researchers actually in the world and aera has now gone into collaboration with other international associations from around the world, to form whate now call the world educational research association, wera and as we were pulling together our representatives from these

bodies from across the world, the scholars in the u.s. kept struggling over the question of, we have to make sure that we are able to translate, when we have meetin, et cetera and when we had the first meeting with these scholars, from around the world, it was not only the fact they all spoke english but they often talked, particularly, in europe, of having conferences in english. and, it just seemed sort of a minor detail to them, the idea that somehow people didn't speak more than one language. i think that there are three or four sort of big ideas that i'm going to sort of put under the veil of sort of umbrella of a scientific study of language that is really very important, it is really important for to us distinguish between sort of scientifically, if you will, what we know about language and

language variation on the one hand and the political and ideological kinds of debates and philosophies that are the reason that we even pose this as a question. language as howard indicated is very much tied to a sense of identity, of who you are. and this fact that lack english has survived across these many generations to me is a very clear testimony that blak black people he historically understood the conction between our ability to speak black english in our intimate relations with one another and our sense of familihood, our sense of our place in histor time and space. i think that these debates about the question of black english are very much informed by what is a fundamentally accountable whites supremist kind of ideology around a variation. they are all lansin national languages, all have lots of

variations or dialects, and sometimes these dialects are based on the region in the country, from where you come, and sometimes they are based on issues having to do with class status, i remember when i was in college, i had some -- for those of you who -- i was a delta cigna pheta and my colleagues were from new yorknd i was from chicago and they talked about soda pop and the airport and i thought it was strange and it was because they were black people from new york versus black people from chicago, versus black people from alabama or california and i think we have lots of interesting examples in the this public media, to sort of help us understand, in parted the power of african-american english or black english and one of this points i often make is, if you listen for example to someone like oprah winfrey, who transfers verses many kinds of boundaries and most of the time you hear her saking what we

call the quote-unquote standard english, until she wants to get intimate, and when she wants to get intimate and bring the auence in close, and to have them feel that they are really at home no mattar who is out there in that audience she'll revert to speaking black english, and i think if you listen to our president, president barack obama, and when he is -- when he will be speaking this version of language we are calling standar english, but when he wants to be rhetorically powerful you see that not only the rhythm of his speech changes, but, also, the pronunciation of vowels, for example will begin to change. certainly, we have a long tradition in terms of politics, the political rhetoric, particularly in our minute material tradition, because in the case, black english, sometimes, people want to associated black english only with sin tax, i be versus i am. and that is one aspect of black english be but it is also the rhythm of the speech, also the

tone is tone ation and rhythm and your body when you are communicating and also certain kinds of language, there are people who have studied, for example, interestingly, the influences of african-american english on what we call standard english. that there are certain words, for example in the english language, certainly in the south, but even in tes of the general sort of median and public, that have as their origin speech in the black communy. and, certainly, i think hip-hop has become another powerful example of the power of the rhetoric of black english that has had anmpact all across the world. all languages have variation, and one of the premier linguistses studying black english, dr. geneva smithem from michigan state university uses

the term the language of wider education and what we call standard english rather than being standard is like the language of commerce, is the language in the business sort of commercial community, but it's not necessarily the language of in the macy. so, a lot of times, even at the university, to try to help students to understand this, the appropriateness of language to place, you could take a working class white kid who comes out of boston, who will come to northwestern university. and once he gets there, he knows the language of wider communication for him there is going to be some version of this standard thing. but, when he goes back home, and is hanging out with his cousins who were the not going to the northwesterns of the world, and he is hanging out in th pub drinking beer with them he will not speak the same way. he will speak the language that he grew up with, which is a particular dialect or version of

english. that has functionality iterms of place. someone has said, actlly the difference between the language -- a language and dialect is an army, languages have armies behind them, to give them power. so, all i'm saying is that it is important for us to not get sidetracked into thinking that the debates about blook black english are about language, they are not. they are simply about power and there are -- is no place in the world where you will not find variation i the speech of people speaking a particular national language, that differs according to region, place, class, and historical background. >> and i want to kind of add to th -- [applause]. >> i want to add to that, that th thing we call black english has its own, you know, counterparts, in other parts of

the world and we need to recognize the fact that we come out of a very particular at thises historical moment and that historical moment has been critical in shaping the language that we speak. if you go back to the air r of the slave trade, the -- one of the realities of that experience was that the people who were captured and brought to the americas were very diverse people. speaking very, very diverse languages. languages that at times were not mutually intelligible. and so, when they arrived o theseshores, they are faced with the challenge of trying to figure out how to communicate with one another. and equallyimportant, how to be able to communicate with those who are their capts. and, in the context of slavery, it is important for us to

realize that these enslaved africans of diverse african backgrounds virtually invented this new language that we call black english. now, it didn't just happen in the u.s., and just happen in the englisspeaking world indeed everylace youo in the amica, there is a variation and a version of language invented by black people this those places, using theurean based vocabulary to some extent, but -- or structure, and vocabulary, but, with apefic african content to it. and so, in a place like brazil, there is an african version of portuguese that is spoken there, that is quite distinct from the standard portuguese, that is spoken. in a place like aruba, there is a language that you had

popiamento that is invented there, a combination of the vñ the second points, though, is that one of the worst things that happens to our young people when they go to school, is they walk in to the door and the teachers declare the language

they bring with them wrong wrong. because, they are the not just sang their children are not speaking the right language, they are saying that the not only what they speak is wrong, but, everything they have lived up to the time they come through the door is wrong. in other words, their culture is wrong and it calls into question the very identity and being of the child, when you say that what you are saying is wrong and, there is absolutely no reason why the schools or anyone has to say this. all you have to do is when you walk into the school, say we'll team you another language, we'll teach you something we call standard english and there is a place for our vernacular language, which, you know, is -- basically language is -- an instrument of kanucks, if it succeeds, in carrying the message i have to you, and you carry you message back to me, then it is language. it works. and it doesn't have to have all

the pejorative stuff on top of it. finally i'll say we need to insist that our teachers in our schools stop in effect laying on our children this added learning burden. they can continue to know their street language, as i do, but they can also learn the new languages that are being offered in the school and they should be encouraged to learn those new languages because it wilbe one of the tools to their future in the 21st century. >> could i make one very brief and then -- i knoyou have a response to that same question. and that is, two points i want to make. one is, the international examples that howard gave, the power of them is the power of african cultu and identity. to have survivedven in the

lack of -- direct consciousness of it. and you are talk about brazil and you go through there and there are these hugeyorba -- into temples. >> what do you call them where the gods -- riches, as tall that's inside of this building. and, that -- and many of -- of us heard the stories othe winos in the alley, sing i gotta pour a little drink for h ancestors. how did these things survive, youknow, many years ago, i was in guyana, in georgetown and someone had died, and ty brought the body back and went in and, they had brought the elderly sister in from the countryside, and it was lake a wake and she was [humming] and i didn't know what she was saying but i knew exactly what she was doing and so you know, alice

walker talks about this, to kill the language is to kill the connection, it is to act like -- to act like all of the ancestors' shoulders on whom we stan the reason we even exist and are able to sit here and be here, to erase all of that, and so therefore it is sacrosanct to think about doing it and the other is african-american english, arficanizednglish is not simply a language of the street. if you look at our greatt writers, tony morrison will tell you when she wrote the opening of it may have been "the buest eye" i don't remember which novel it was and she wanted to have it as and in miment, wanted it to be crafted in a way that was an intimate convertion, and she had to draw on the structures of the black english and we can go from langston hughes to alice walker and ceeley in the color purposing

speaks the voice of her grandmother and my husband, and you can go on. and so, african-american english or arficanized english is also -- it is also a language cultivated for literary communication and not just language of the street. >> i a, all the time, you can't sing the blues -- in standard english. it just don't work. it just don't work! [laughter]. >> yeah. and in my haste to get this panel discussion started i neglected to introduce myself, and my name is wade hudson, and i am president of just us books, a children's book establish publisher located in new jersey. [applause]. >> many of our young people only speak in black dialect. or the language of intimacy, as you would say. but many people point to the

necessity of their being able to spook in the language of commerce and when we consider all of the points that you have made, the appearance of they political aspectf looki at black dialect and also, how the use of black dialect has been used in the art form, through literature, how can we encourage and let our young people know the importance of being able to utilize other languages? not just standard english but other languages? what ways can we motivate them and encourage them? >> well, one of the things that hahappened, to be perfectly honest, is that language h almost been stripped out of school, so-called foreign language. they keep taking more and more of the -- and so,f kids d't have the opportunity to do the study, ando -- as a structured part of the learning, then, it doesn't have the value it is supposed to have. that is the first thing and so, we -- as parents, as educators

and others need to insist on the reestablishment of language programs in schools, grade school, junior high school, high school, college. it is one of the great weakness i believe of the american educational system, now that we are the not doing that. but, that is -- at the educational level, at the level of the students, i mean, the truth is, that they find themlves at a linguistic disadvantage, every day. and, we are not -- i don't think we are doing enough to -- -- their response is to go deeper into the -- 'll call it the street language, and, to try to validate that as their sense of

identity and authority. they can'tind security there. and expect to be able to negotiate the world. and it is our duty our responbility, to insisthat they learn these other languages. in the absence of it, they are in effect crippling themselves and were participating in the crippling process. i would say we, as adults, as teachers, as parents, et cetera, have an obligation to, basically, insist that the young people know the languages and let them know what they can't do if they don't know them. i mean, that is probably the most important. without the language, they are just -- whole aspects of the human experience, that a are cut from o off from and our responsibility as adults is to foster their human development to the max.

and, if we are not taking on that responsibility, as parents, as children, we are failing them -- as parents and teachers and educators w are failing them and a lot of the responsibility, pressure rests on our shoulders anwe have to bring before them almost on a daily basis the things they need to know in order to be able to be and to do. >> well, i think it very important -- i don't fundamentally disagree with howard's comment. i would say that the challenges in terms of our children, o young people, learning to speak this variation of english, are du directly to the fact that the vast majority of african-american children are in schools that are criminally

poor. and the fact that many of them speak african-american english at home and with their peers is not the source of the problem of their learning. all of us... as human beings, we are have clear about what it means to read other human beings and figure out what we have to do to get people to do what we want. and, if wt our children come to want is access to the market economy in terms o the workplace, part of what they need is opportunities to experience it. our young people he very few opportunities for mentorship, internships, for example in workplac settings, very little

opportunity to come to college campuses before they are seniors in high school, and northwestern university, we have something called "the center for talent development" and you have to be tested to be quote-unquote gifted to enter this little program in the suer, and they have kids from 4th or 5th gra up through high school and once the summer hi, the campus is replete with young people. and, hundreds of young people that are on there, you can counted on one hand how many african-american or latino students that you ever see i that program, but@ the kids who are in that program have a sense of what is college like -- college life like, what does it require to be able to get admission into it and once we make or schools into better places for our kids, which i would argue is one of the gravest political challenges that we have as a communities, in terms of responsibility that

we take to allow them to continue to do what they do with our young people, then -- i don't think the issue of them learning to speak, another variety of english, is a huge matter at all. and i assume somewhere along the line we'll have some discussions, about the educational implications, of teaching from the strength that kids who are speakers of african-american english bring. that is what i do. i talk about it in my most recent book, "culture, literacy and learning, in the midst of a whirl wind" teachers college press which is largely about how to draw on the kinds of things kids bring, in terms of reaching, discipline and specifically in reading and writing. >> hello, everyone, i am carla ranger with the dallas county community collegeistrict and we sponsor a program that

advocates literacy called the african-american read-in which is a part of an initiative by the black caucus of national council of teachers of english, and of course this is a topic that i very relevant to us, in the community college district, and of course at the university's -- universities and high schools as well and we wanted wade hudson to be a part of this panel and i was asked to moderate and we were outside talking with others who have an interest in this topic and we have also asked to join us mr. rodney reynolds, who is the publisher of american legacy. amican legacy. yes. to get back to a very basic question, there is much discussion and documentation of the discontinue newts between school language and culture. and home language and culture. what do you think is an

effective approach in addressing these dis continuities and it gets laxack to what you were hinting, camera, and i'd look a response from each of you, to that question. >> i think the first important issue in terms of schools is to help young people understand language. and to understand the structure of language, the functions that language serves. in my own work, i have shown how knowledge ofsignifying, your mom is so skinny, shean do a hoola hoop in the cheerio, that involved in understanding the --

and signify, you have to understand figure tiff language and you have to understand irony in a number of studies how helping speakers -- students of african-american english to understand the structqre for example of something like your mom is so skinny she can do a -- hoola hoop in a cheerio, to understand the structure of that and how do you know, for example, in listening to hip-hop is another example, uses -- talk about in the book, the mask by the fujis, andhere is no kid

who years ago listening to the mask would think the reference to the mask in those lyrics is literal. evybody listing to it, the kids listening to it, understd the mask stands for something, but, they don't know -- may not know the word symbol and may not know what kind of strategies they are using to reject a literal interpretation, and to construct a figure tiff interpretation and so, what we have done in our work and what we call culture modelg is to help start kids with the -- examining the every day uses of language and the critical thinking that lays behind the production and analysis of their every day language. and, then, show them how that then applies to the reading of very complex text. there is also -- has also been work by geneva smitherman, who i mentioned earlier is certainly without questn the preeminent

scholar of study of black english in the united states and she has shown the national assessment of educational progress and the closest things we have to a national exam in the the u.s., and she had shown, taking writing samples of 7th graders, looking at thousands of essay, that it -- had already been scored, in prior years, and, she found that the higher the use of black english, not in terms of i be versus i am. but, in terms of rhetorical strategies, the higher the grade that had been given to that assessment. so, the point i'm simply trying to make is that there is an existing body of work, one that shows that by helping speakers of black english understand the power of the language they use, that that can be used to help them become bter in this case, readers and writers. >> -- better, in this case, readers and write sneers i think it is important not only to know black english and standard

english but i think it helps us to communicate effectively in today's society. especially i think it is important for our youth. the internet has been extremely helpful, in the society in which we live today, but, i think sometimes our youth, our children, begin to become involved in the internet and use computers far too soon, i think we need to get back to the basics in terms of learning how to read. the language skills. i think, that that is so important. know that that was one of the ings that we need -- i did as a parent. my wife and i did as parent, was to make sure that our children could read early on, and i think it is so important. we have to interact in a number of different communities. not only in our own communit but -- becae i might talk differently to my friends, but i have to know how to interact in the business community, as well. and ihink that is so important, and i thi our youth

and our children need to understand that they have to be able to effectively communicate in two different societies, basically, today and i think that is one of the things that is so important. >> i went to chester high school in chester, pennsylvania. it was a racist town, and we had -- our junior high school up through junior high school it was all segregated and in the en high school we integrated and when we integrated our junior high school into the -- with the other white junior high schools, that -- found ourselves in the a very competitive situation and those of us who had chosen to become academic majors found ourselves at a tremendous disadvantage and w started a study group, 8 of us -- actually, 9 of us ended up graduating and 8 of us were in the study group, and the way we figured out how to get through

all of those courses was to -- we'd have our meetings, read the stuff in the standard english and then sitown and talk about it in the street language. and break it down into language that you know, you -- that we could understand. and by the time we got around to doing the test we knew the stuff, and if we didn't write it in the street language, we wrote in the standard english but we learned it through the application of the street language, or african-american vernacular language, of the -- modalities and it worked. so there are -- there are many ways in which that which we have learned as our basic languag can be used to advance our, you knowsituation and our being. we do needo be clear, though, that learning the other language

is a different kind of work. and we didn't need to develop the same level of -- or mastery of it that we hae o the language of our homes and our base cultures. >> could add one brief thing, though, just to that? i keep trying to place this discussion about afrin-american english in the larger context of using language. learning -- a middle class white child who grows up in a home, speaking this thing that we cl standard english, or language of wider communication, in terms of pronunciation and sin tax, saying, i am instead of i be, when that kid, particularly hits middle school or high school, learning to speak the language of mathematics, learning to speak the language of physics, learning to speak the language of science, is learning a different language.

and it's not easy. in other words, it is not that because you can speak standard english at home, that that gives you some sort of easy pathway to learning the academic english of disciplines. and for people who have gone to graduate school, they have often the biggest challenge there, first year graduate students when you listen to them try to talk about the content that they are studying, they sound like second language learners. because they are learning a different language. >> right. >> and, your example, howard, would hold equally true, of a student who was bilingual in spanish and english, so the ability for them to talk their ideas through in spanish, and in other words, we -- so much of what happens in terms of talking

about black people is situated as though we exist in som kind of special bubble universe for black people, or for colored people. we are talking about the issue of the kinds of challenges that are always attached to learning new varieties of language. and black kid are in a very -- the very same position as other learners are. the question is, what are the -- not that the challenges are so much different. it is the question of what of the nature of the supports that are available toelp them do that, and the problem is, that for black kids,ho are poor, and who are speakers of african-american english, the supports available to them in school are of a quality -- qualitatively different order than they are for kids who are more avenue fluent, and or affluent and white.

. >> i think also, the primary definition and purpose of language is to communicate. and i think one can speak the so-called standard english and system not be able to communicate very well with someone who may be more learned or may have a more broader cabulary. and i think that standard english keeps -- from my viewpoint, keeps changing, too. because different words are added. every year. so, you know, when we really talk about standard english, then my question is what are we really talking about? what really is standard english? is it the way commentators on television express themselves, is that this standard english? is it the way some of the tv

performers communicate and express tmselves? is that standard english? or are they using a mixture of dialect along with so-called standard english? so, i think sometim we can get caught in the trick-bag of looking at standard english as the superior one, as what you are saying, and if the primary goal of language is to communicate, then i think we really need t focus on that, too. yet understanding that we need to help our kids understand the importance of being able to communicate on different levels. >> this point that you are making about language in change in very important. we are living in the midst of change, not only in terms of vocabulary but in terms of what we call sin tax as well. so wade, right? >> yes. >> if i were to call you and say, hey, wade, is that you? you would say, what, it's -- >> it's me. >> it's me, english teachers would say you are supposed to say, what,t's i.

nobody says it's i. why? because that is structure of the language. that is in the midst of change. we are living in the midst of this change right now. if you listen to television, and all of the variety of people who are on television, speaking, as an english teacher, which is my training, i hear all kinds of errors. they are the not the i be errors, but they will be errors, if they have a subject and there is a lg phrase in between the subject and the predicate and they will not use the appropriate congregation on that,nd -- con you. >> gags on tha and i have ph.d. students who constantly write thing using the word a noun like "people" and pronoun like that instead of who to refer back to themnd these are advanced ph.d. students. right? so there is a woman connie weaver who years ago did a study and wrote letters and sent them

off to businessmen the people we think the standardnglish is supposed to gives this automatic passport to,right? and she would imbed in some letters, she'd put errors that were not associated with black english. and they didn't pick those out. they didn't even notice them and then, some oths she'd put errors that were associated with black english and those they picked out, right? so, all i'm saying is, black people, we really have to move -- we live in thi spiderweb of racism. where everywhere you turn, white supremist ideology has something that we are supposed to be reacting to,nd they say you don't have language, oh, we have language, don't have this, oh, we have this. we are human beings and human beings struggle with language variation. and, in human communities, language changes. and, in all human communities,

in different ways, people struggle over power, about language. and as howard had said earlier, everywhere in the world where you find african people, having been taken from africa and brought to be a slave -- enslaved in parts all over central south america you find arficanized versions of french, of spanish, of port dpeez. so, these -- these are d-portuguese and these are notch ral phenomenon and it is important to understand it and get out of the game of always having to react to some kind of negative stuff people are putting out there. it is silly. >> and the politics you are talk about, of the language, i mean, at a certain level, nobody speaks standard english. it is a standard written form. there is a standard written form that is a convention, if you will, that people embrace, but, the white people who come to

school, don't speak standard english. the asian people who come don't speak standard english, et cetera. that is one side and the other is that yes, the language is constantly changing. and among theritical change agents in american english and maybe we need to state that it is american englh, not standard english, because, there are other englishes. >> that's right. >> that's right. indian english, canadian english. >> canadian english and a -- and the broer and sister from jamaica! speak something called jamaican english. but, right here in the united states, whatever it is we call american english is being transformed daily by our language, by our vernacularby what we said and how we say it. and they are more -- i mean, especially among young people,

they have taken -- take on through the music, and throu the interact@ú distinctions. within it all, know two things, this language we speak is over -- is as old as america. and that is the firstthing. and, that it is a living, vital, dynamic language that is constantly changing and constantly introducing new vocabulary into it and that

vocabulary and the way it is spoken is constantly impacting on what america and americans say and think and understand, and the ways in which they understand their world. >> we have had -- let me just get to our other panelists, who have joined us because i know there are questions of the audience, we have another panelist, and didn't properl introduce rodney reynolds, rodney is president and ceo of rjr xhuk rchlr communications a and publisher of american legacy and executive producer and american legacy television and thank you for your rce to the first questionnd we hope to get responses from each of you and we have had another, again, another panelist to join us and i'd like for judy to introduce herself, because, having a linguist here, and historian and author and all of you are authors and a publisher, we also have a teacher, a high school teacher. >> yes. >> judy, will respond to very quickly, that -- the

discontinuities between home language and culture and school language and culture and your approach to up bringing those together or dealing with that effectively, if you can respond to that, and, then, i'm going to k each of you to bring it back around to the harlem book fair and to books, if you have a book or an author you might suggest that parents can read, thatill assist or support with this or give to their children to read and then we want to go to some questions. >> okay. what's up! how are you duin', how you be? what's going on, girl! it's nice to meet you! what it be like, asante-san amount, hello, i'm judy andre and i have en teaching for 18 years at boys and girls high school in brooklyn. and i believe the language that a-- a lot of the students are speaking today is reflected in media and this in the image they try to perceive, that they actually do perceive, but they try to emulate.

because of the curriculum that teaches teachers are given under the new no child left behind act, we have been forced as teachers to teach contrary to the culture of the student even though we have multi-cultural education. as a result of that, you have students who are african-american, who are speaking a variety of languages, even though they may be from the caribbean, and call themselves caribbean-american or they may be from what we call back in the day, the gullageeche. language which is a reflection of the slang the students are speaking today, and when you hear your grandmother say, i reckon so, you can do that, or that is up to the notch or we have to hold on, we own freedom, that is still a spectrum of language that is still a part of the african-american experience and so in order for achers, educators, parents, and the

professional world, to look at the discontinuities of language we have to first started with the family and create a respect for language that we are not getting from the world and from each other:

>> to your history and to your culture. and that should not be separated. i think it starts with parenting and in the home where there is a respt for language. and then as you go into adulthd, you learn how to create your own i would guess nuance of the written word. another spoken word. thatind of go togetr but you have to find your own place. and it's very difficult to do that in america because of the media, the image and a lack of respect for african people and african-american people in this country. so we haveo determine what is it that we are going to say that is going to create respect amongst us. >> all right thank you. you each mentioned so many topics that we could actually

get into, but we do want to get some questions. but to give our audience one or two books or authors or papers or essays they might read, parent should read or he their sons and daughters read to help them understand who they are linguistically and culturally. if you hava suggestiowill you do that now? >> we have a mobile truck that we take around the country. last year we did about 15 cities. it's a mobile museum. it's all about our history and our heritage, and this past year we added another component to it that included a reading corner that was sponsored by scholastic. and day, i noticed, on the truck there was a read and rise of books series that a lot of the students went to ever able to read the books.

and they were culturally really geared towards the african-american culture, and it was also i think sponsored in part by the urban league. i think they have something to do with that series as well. so that's just one. and then i know as i was comg down, my wife mentioned, she runs a program called freedom schools in mount vernon, new york, and she mentioned that they believe the freedom schools all across the country, i think that's what she said, are supplied with books from justice books, i believe. >> thank you. suggestions for authors or books. >> well, i would recommend authors rather than books. i think any of the work by abu g. would be a appropriate. baldy myers is an excellent

writers for young adults and he has written what was 60 books that deal with the urban experience. and langston hughes. langston hughes writes the language of blues and the people, and i think he demonstrates the black english or ebonics, whatever you want to call it, is not an inferior language or way of expressing. >> well, i mentioned earlier in our conversation that there are so many grea african-american writers who draw a very powerful ways on african-american english and deal with themes that are things of empowerment and identity. and they certainly, you know, alice walker, mary barack is,

langston hughes, i came up a booty. toni morrison. we could go on and on and on. a great issue i think about these great writers which think is true of all great writers around the world the great writers i believe are like priest who have the gift of second sight. that is, they understand powerful things about what it means to be a human being. and that one of our major responsibilities is to teach our children when they are very done to love books. to love books into love to read. and once they love the books and learn to read, they will read a widely. and they should be able to read widely acrs all kinds of traditions, but certainly within the tradition of african writers who do talk in powerful ways about the conundrum of the human experience. and just as a very brief example of whai'm talking about.

as much as i and howard have read about the holocaust or enslavement of african people in the united states, it was really not until i read toni morrison novel beloved that i had a sense of what it meant to step inside the shoes of a woman livin and a man, living at that te. or alice walker's -- not alice walker. toni morrison to the bluest eye to understand what made you stand inside the shoes of a young black girl living inside a world in which the images to find her out of existence. and at the same time, understand the humanity of a father who would do the horrendous thing that the father does in the bluest eye. these are difficult kind of questions that great writers deal with, and that active reading help our kids to read widely will transform.

it will also mean that rooms like this will be full of people because it's full of people who love books. >> thank you. if you have questions, where you line up at the mic here to my left, and the panelists will be glad to respond. >> good afternoon. thank you to doctor howard dodson and also to max rodriguez for organizing this very important discussion on books. [applause] >> my question is to doctor lee who made a point earlier on the importance for community control. when you are talking about how it's important that our students be able to have people who respect their culture in terms of not just denigrating black english. and one of the barriers to that in terms of community control, especially as it relates to urban cities in this country seems to be unions. and particularly here in new york. you see how the ocean hill

brownsville fiasco of 1968 really ended with the community losing control because of the teachers union. and being from philadelphia, i've heard from several black educators about the ways in which the teachers union there settled with a provision in the contract that limited the number of black educators. so if you've written extensive extensively, what suggestions do you have, doctor lee, for people within the union and for communities to deal with uons in terms of being more sensitive to the needs for african-american children? >> i would make two comments. one is that public education is it essentially political. and one of the patterns that is beginning to emerge in districts

across the country, it's true in new york city. it is certainly true in chicago. is it where school systems are now fundamentally directly under the control of the mayor. and once, and in some respects, although some people may have resisted that, that actually ca potentially be politically empowering because mayors want to get reelected. and the fundamental question is how we are organized at the community level, understanding all the key players in the game of financing, education and making educational decisions. and on the whole, i think that we are not, because even at the point of oan's brownsville, situation, it was still a politically different one in the sense that the politics, it wasn't as direct as i think as it is now.

the second point i would make is that there is, that unions in many respects are not gaining but losing power. teachers unions included in the united states. so i wouldn't necessarily at this point i point to the unions as the source of the problem, if you will. charter schools are n only on the rise, even in terms of some of the focus of the new administration in terms of education. charters are a major part of the transformation of schools, public education in the united states. lots of black people resist it. my sense is it's out there, it's coming. when this started happening in chicago, we said if this is the name of the game, we are going to be in it. so if you want to have it, we have got to have some schools. so we have three charters in chicago with the